scholarly journals GDP-B: Accounting for the Value of New and Free Goods in the Digital Economy

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Brynjolfsson ◽  
Avinash Collis ◽  
W. Erwin Diewert ◽  
Felix Eggers ◽  
Kevin J. Fox
Keyword(s):  
Choice Experiments ◽  
Digital Economy ◽  
National Accounts ◽  
Welfare Gains ◽  
Incentive Compatible ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
The Us

The welfare contributions of the digital economy, characterized by the proliferation of new and free goods, are not well-measured in our current national accounts. We derive explicit terms for the welfare contributions of these goods and introduce a new metric, GDP-B which quantifies their benefits, rather than costs. We apply this framework to several empirical examples including Facebook and smartphone cameras and estimate their valuations through incentive-compatible choice experiments. For example, including the welfare gains from Facebook would have added between 0.05 and 0.11 percentage points to GDP-B growth per year in the US.

The World Economy

2003 ◽  
Vol 186 ◽  
pp. 8-15
Keyword(s):  
Japanese Economy ◽  
National Accounts ◽  
Medium Term ◽  
Forecast Horizon ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
External Demand ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Uk ◽  
European Economies ◽  
Better Than

The growth outlook in our forecast reported in Table 1 looks slightly more robust than it did before the summer, with noticeable upward revisions to both 2003 and 2004, as well as to the medium term outlook. Although the prospects for the European economies are largely unchanged, output prospects look better than they did in North America, Japan and in the rest of East and South Asia. There are stronger indicators in the US, along with clear signs of impacts fromr the depreciation of the dollar and the expansionary fiscal stance. Our forecast for world growth in 2003 has been revised upward by 0.6 percentage points since July to 3.5 per cent, and we are now projecting that growth will be 4.0 per cent or more from 2004 onwards. The revision to 2003 partly stems from statistical revisions in the Japanese national accounts, whereby business investment is now estimated to have risen by 6.8 per cent in the first half of 2003 relative to the previous 6 month period, compared to our July estimate of 1.7 per cent. While we do not expect growth rates of this magnitude to persist, this burst in investment has imparted a momentum to the Japanese economy that has raised the outlook for growth throughout our forecast horizon. As a consequence, our projections for world trade growth have also been revised upward to 5.7 per cent in 2003 and 8.8 per cent in 2004, compared to previous projections of 3.2 per cent and 7 per cent, respectively. However, much of this additional trade is confined to intra-Asian and NAFTA trade, and has not necessarily raised the outlook for external demand in countries such as the UK.

Optimal Taxation of Families: Mirrlees meets Becker*

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Musab Kurnaz
Keyword(s):  
Quantitative Analysis ◽  
Income Distribution ◽  
Income Tax ◽  
Optimal Taxation ◽  
Tax Credits ◽  
Child Rearing ◽  
Welfare Gains ◽  
Us Economy ◽  
Parental Time ◽  
The Us

Abstract This paper studies optimal taxation of families—a combination of an income tax schedule and child tax credits. Child-rearing requires both goods and parental time, which distinctly impact the design of optimal child tax credits. In the quantitative analysis, I calibrate my model to the US economy and show that the optimal child tax credits are U-shaped in income and are decreasing in family size. In particular, the optimal credits decrease in the first nine deciles of the income distribution and then increase thereafter. Implementing the optimum yields large welfare gains.

The World Economy

2003 ◽  
Vol 185 ◽  
pp. 9-16
Keyword(s):  
Latin American ◽  
Euro Area ◽  
World Trade ◽  
World Economy ◽  
Oil Industry ◽  
Private Sector Investment ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Dollar Depreciation

The outlook for world growth this year has deteriorated since April, due to a sharp contraction in world trade in the first quarter of the year and failure to sustain the revival in private sector investment seen in the fourth quarter of 2002. We have as a consequence revised our projections for world growth this year down by ¼ percentage point. This reflects sharp downward revisions of ½–¾ percentage points in the Euro Area and Canada, both of whose exchange rates have continued to appreciate in effective terms, while the outlook for the US and Japan is broadly unchanged. Growth in Japan and the Euro Area stagnated in the first half of 2003, with recessions in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Austria appearing likely. The US and Canada, on the other hand, continued to expand, albeit more slowly than in the second half of 2002. Following two years of exceptional weakness, Latin American growth has started to revive, although Venezuela is still suffering from the 2 month stoppage in the oil industry earlier this year and Argentina has lost competitiveness due to a strong appreciation against the dollar. Growth has slowed in several Asian economies, notably South Korea, but China continues to expand rapidly, spurred by the competitiveness impact of the dollar depreciation and infrastructure preparations for the 2008 Olympics. This has helped sustain export growth from the rest of Asia despite the more widespread slowdown in world trade.

scholarly journals Freedom Fries

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 256-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Guy Michaels ◽  
Xiaojia Zhi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Willingness To Pay ◽  
Bilateral Trade ◽  
The United States ◽  
Average Decrease ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
The Us

Do firms always choose the cheapest suitable inputs, or can group attitudes affect their choices? To investigate this question, we examine the deterioration of relations between the United States and France from 2002–2003, when France's favorability rating in the US fell by 48 percentage points. We estimate that the worsening attitudes reduced bilateral trade by about 9 percent and that trade in inputs probably declined similarly, by about 8 percent. We use these estimates to calculate the average decrease in firms' willingness to pay for French (or US) commodities when attitudes worsened. (JEL D24, F13, F14, L14, L21)

scholarly journals The comparison of vaccine hesitancy of COVID-19 vaccination in China and the United States

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taoran Liu ◽  
Zonglin He ◽  
Jian Huang ◽  
Ni Yan ◽  
Qian Chen ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Propensity Score ◽  
Propensity Score Matching ◽  
Discrete Choice ◽  
Choice Experiments ◽  
The United States ◽  
Discrete Choice Experiments ◽  
Vaccine Hesitancy ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cost

AbstractObjectivesTo investigate the differences in vaccine hesitancy and preference of the currently available COVID-19 vaccines between two countries, viz. China and the United States (US).MethodA cross-national survey was conducted in both China and the US, and discrete choice experiments as well as Likert scales were utilized to assess vaccine preference and the underlying factors contributing to the vaccination acceptance. A propensity score matching (PSM) was performed to enable a direct comparison between the two countries.ResultsA total of 9,077 (5,375 and 3,702, respectively, from China and the US) respondents have completed the survey. After propensity score matching, over 82.0% respondents from China positively accept the COVID-19 vaccination, while 72.2% respondents form the US positively accept it. Specifically, only 31.9% of Chinese respondents were recommended by a doctor to have COVID-19 vaccination, while more than half of the US respondents were recommended by a doctor (50.2%), local health board (59.4%), or friends and families (64.8%). The discrete choice experiments revealed that respondents from the US attached the greatest importance to the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines (44.41%), followed by the cost of vaccination (29.57%), whereas those from China held a different viewpoint that the cost of vaccination covers the largest proportion in their trade-off (30.66%), and efficacy ranked as the second most important attribute (26.34%). Also, respondents from China tend to concerned much more about the adverse effect of vaccination (19.68% vs 6.12%) and have lower perceived severity of being infected with COVID-19.ConclusionWhile the overall acceptance and hesitancy of COVID-19 vaccination in both countries are high, underpinned distinctions between countries are observed. Owing to the differences in COVID-19 incidence rates, cultural backgrounds, and the availability of specific COVID-19 vaccines in two countries, the vaccine rollout strategies should be nation-dependent.

scholarly journals Incentive Compatible Referenda and the Valuation of Environmental Goods

1998 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-139 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura O. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Willingness To Pay ◽  
Contingent Valuation ◽  
Contingent Valuation Method ◽  
Experimental Tests ◽  
Choice Experiments ◽  
Hypothetical Bias ◽  
The Real ◽  
Environmental Goods ◽  
Incentive Compatible ◽  
Valuation Method

Recent attempts to test the validity of the contingent valuation method have relied on laboratory-type experiments. In these experiments, willingness to pay responses in hypothetical choice experiments are compared with responses from choice experiments requiring actual payments. Often evidence of hypothetical bias is found. Critical for these experimental tests of hypothetical surveys is that the methodology used to elicit willingness to pay from subjects in the real-payment experiment be demand revealing. If it is not, then differences in responses to hypothetical and real valuation questions could be due to free-riding in the real-payment survey and not due to hypothetical bias in the hypothetical survey. This paper reports on experiments that implement a theoretically incentive-compatible revelation mechanism (a closed referendum) to elicit responses to valuation questions in both hypothetical and real experiments. As in earlier studies, evidence of an upward hypothetical bias is found.

scholarly journals Deterring Illegal Entry: Migrant Sanctions and Recidivism in Border Apprehensions

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Samuel Bazzi ◽  
Gordon Hanson ◽  
Sarah John ◽  
Bryan Roberts ◽  
John Whitley
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Border Patrol ◽  
Administrative Records ◽  
Baseline Rate ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
The Us ◽  
Random Variation

During the 2008 to 2012 period, the US Border Patrol enacted new sanctions on migrants apprehended while attempting to enter the United States illegally. Using administrative records on apprehensions of Mexican nationals that include fingerprint-based IDs and other details, we detect if an apprehended migrant is subject to penalties and if he is later reapprehended. Exploiting plausibly random variation in the rollout of sanctions, we estimate econometrically that exposure to penalties reduced the 18-month reapprehension rate for males by 4.6 to 6.1 percentage points off of a baseline rate of 24.2 percent. These magnitudes imply that sanctions can account for 28 to 44 percent of the observed decline in recidivism in apprehensions. Further results suggest that the drop in recidivism was associated with a reduction in attempted illegal entry. (JEL K37, J15, J18)

scholarly journals The UK and Digital Trade: Which way forward?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Jones ◽  
Beatriz Kira ◽  
Anna Sands ◽  
Danilo B. Garrido Alves
Keyword(s):  
Global Economy ◽  
Trade Agreements ◽  
Digital Economy ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Data Flows ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Uk

The internet and digital technologies are upending global trade. Industries and supply chains are being transformed, and the movement of data across borders is now central to the operation of the global economy. Provisions in trade agreements address many aspects of the digital economy – from cross-border data flows, to the protection of citizens’ personal data, and the regulation of the internet and new technologies like artificial intelligence and algorithmic decision-making. The UK government has identified digital trade as a priority in its Global Britain strategy and one of the main sources of economic growth to recover from the pandemic. It wants the UK to play a leading role in setting the international standards and regulations that govern the global digital economy. The regulation of digital trade is a fast-evolving and contentious issue, and the US, European Union (EU), and China have adopted different approaches. Now that the UK has left the EU, it will need to navigate across multiple and often conflicting digital realms. The UK needs to decide which policy objectives it will prioritise, how to regulate the digital economy domestically, and how best to achieve its priorities when negotiating international trade agreements. There is an urgent need to develop a robust, evidence-based approach to the UK’s digital trade strategy that takes into account the perspectives of businesses, workers, and citizens, as well as the approaches of other countries in the global economy. This working paper aims to inform UK policy debates by assessing the state of play in digital trade globally. The authors present a detailed analysis of five policy areas that are central to discussions on digital trade for the UK: cross-border data flows and privacy; internet access and content regulation; intellectual property and innovation; e-commerce (including trade facilitation and consumer protection); and taxation (customs duties on e-commerce and digital services taxes). In each of these areas the authors compare and contrast the approaches taken by the US, EU and China, discuss the public policy implications, and examine the choices facing the UK.

scholarly journals Using Massive Online Choice Experiments to Measure Changes in Well-being

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Brynjolfsson ◽  
Avinash Collis ◽  
Felix Eggers
Keyword(s):  
National Income ◽  
Consumer Surplus ◽  
Cost Effective ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Choice Experiments ◽  
Discrete Choice Experiments ◽  
Digital Goods ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Incentive Compatible ◽  
Economic Progress

GDP and derived metrics such as productivity have been central to our understanding of economic progress and well-being. In principle, changes in consumer surplus provide a superior, and more direct, measure of changes in well-being, especially for digital goods. In practice, these alternatives have been difficult to quantify. We explore the potential of massive online choice experiments to measure consumer surplus. We illustrate this technique via several empirical examples which quantify the valuations of popular digital goods and categories. Our examples include incentive compatible discrete choice experiments where online and lab participants receive monetary compensation if and only if they forgo goods for pre-defined periods. For example, the median user needed a compensation of about $48 to forgo Facebook for one month. Our overall analyses reveal that digital goods have created large gains in well-being that are not reflected in conventional measures of GDP and productivity. By periodically querying a large, representative sample of goods and services, including those which are not priced in existing markets, changes in consumer surplus and other new measures of well-being derived from these online choice experiments have the potential for providing cost-effective supplements to the existing National Income and Product Accounts.

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